7. Insecurity
It’s a scary thing
to not know how to feel
when a thousand opinions
buzz like flies in my ears
it’s not just a person, or two, or a hundred
that makes me a nervous wreck
it’s not their words and their actions
their lack of attention to detail
it’s my misunderstanding of motivations
they must be out to get me
their sole purpose of living is to
hunt me down with a knife
makes sense, right?
I’m wrong, and I know it
but emotions like fear and anxiety
don’t bow down to logic,
they chase it down like wild dogs
devour it like a carcass
I know deep inside that there’s nothing to hide from
that truth will win out at the end of the day
but my heart is so much stronger than my head
isn’t it ironic that we don’t know how to properly love
the ones we love
until we don’t love them anymore?
that we find a way to shed the clinginess
the habits that they hated
the brokenness and biting words
and now that those words don’t matter
we are free to love
but it’s too late because we don’t.
it’s a cycle of disaster
of almosts and too lates
that wrecks my life and keeps
my head spinning in a tornado
of doubt
nails and plywood and hay and glass shards
and hearts and souls and old beginnings and new disasters spinning around
and around
and around
they’ll have to hit the ground
sometime
here I go again, a useless ramble
because periodic poetry may soothe my soul
but no one wants to listen
so I’m sorry that you’re reading this.
I read the poetry aloud so maybe you will
applaud me
applause equals love, I think
that’s what I’ve always thought
Anxiety is
claustrophobia
.
it encroaches on everything that I do
hides in my backpack
jumps out of my books
creeps into my every conversation
stalks my dreams
walks in my footsteps
stays in my closet
clings to my clothes.
I can’t have a decent conversation
with a human being
because every human will let me down
I view each one as a mistake-to-be
nothing will last, but I try anyway
and now I’m just tired of trying.
They’ll all hate me in the end.
and so many hate me now
it spun out of control,
the lies that you told and the reputation
you spun for me
a web that I’m trying to untangle
but my need for approval shines through me
apparent desperation
and no one loves that
no one could love me.
every word that I say,
everything that I do
every song that I write
is under scrutiny
they judge and they hate
but most of it takes place in the courtroom
of my mind
where everyone is guilty
and I am in prison
pleading for justice
but the judge is their smiles
that pity the way that my knees bend inwards when I walk
and the voice crack I had in the September recital
and the boy that abandoned me and the way I reacted
and the songs that I wrote to soothe my pain like a bandaid
they pity it all, and they never forgive.
IT’S ALL IN MY MIND.
IT’S ALL IN MY MIND.
no matter the millions of times that I say it
the ways to re-word it,
the poetry to write
I can’t believe something I KNOW to be true.
I don’t deserve them, but they
don’t deserve me
a paradox, an illusion
I live in self-pity
I get high on feeling cornered
and my elusive vulnerability
addicting, it seems
to push people away and to live
in a realm of anxiety.
you came along and you
pushed all the buttons
I can’t talk about it,
it’s a story for another time
but you said to me “love, it’s alright
everything’s fine”
but you said it to me like I’m a newborn child
who couldn’t know any better
like I don’t know how it is to be tethered
to a bomb that could burst any second.
Heaven can wait for its angel, my dear
but I can’t wait here.
pulling at ropes that dwindle away
and searching for scraps in a wasteland
I’m slipping away into nothingness
and I don’t even know if I want to try
to come back.